Chapter Three
Previously in Chapter 2 Prologue - Doubles Troubles Diva, Melech and Vohrun’s eyes open slowly as they awaken, suspended in a viscous green fluid and restrained. They quickly found out that their captor is none other than Octavious, the proprietor of the Jade Jug Inn in the city of Waterdeep. Octavious breaks the glass of the three vats containing the confused adventurers and informs them that they are not really Diva, Melech and Vohrun at all, but defective copies created by Octavious and his master, the Red Wizard Magister Manus Kost. Octavious and Manus explain to the three clones that they will expire quickly unless they perform a task for Manus, the retrieval of three Legendary Weapons, the sword Blackrazor, the trident Wave, and the hammer Whelm. These items were stolen from a vault belonging to Szazz Tam, the most powerful of the Red Wizards, by another of their order, the mad wizard Keraptis. While the motive for this theft is unknown Manus is confident that the weapons are located within White Plume Mountain, a volcanic cone near Mount Hotenow in the Neverwinter Wood, northeast of Neverwinter. The clones reluctantly agree and are equipped with glass beads capable of recalling them to the wizards before being abruptly teleported to a muddy field at the base of White Plume Mountain. The Cloned Three began exploring the mountain, eventually finding a hidden door covered by mud in the floor of a tunnel. Progressing down a spiral staircase they eventually arrive at the partially flooded complex, whose floor is largely covered with a foot or more of standing opaque water. At the entrance to the compound the Cloned Three encounter Cynthara, a bedraggled female sphinx reluctantly serving Keraptis. She requests that they solve her riddle, which Verminous Vohrun quickly does. She apathetically admits that it was easy because she resents her confinement and allows the party to progress. They press her to provide more information on the complex, to which she responds that she cannot provide it but warns them that it is “Not a place for anyone”. The Cloned Three progress through the left of three passages, briefly falling into a hidden pit of water. After pulling themselves from the pit they continue, finding a passageway curiously lined with large copper disks. Some experimentation by Verminous Vohrun finds that these plates cause metal moving down the hallway to heat to intense temperatures. Malformed Melech, as the most lightly armored member of the party removes his few metallic items and progressed down the hall unhindered. When he arrived at the end of the hall however he is ambushed by a hidden pack of ghouls. Separated from the others he is nearly killed before Defective Diva charged down the tunnel, being scorched by her burning armor to defend her companion. While the two of them battle several ghouls Verminous Vohrun taunts several more into pursuing him down the tunnel. As the ghouls advance upon him he repeatedly shattered the area, destroying a number of the copper plates in the process. When the battle was won the party rested on a nearby landing to recover their strength prior to continuing. The next challenge faced by the party was daunting, a long room whose surfaces were rendered so slick that it was impossible to stand or arrest ones movement in any way. It was also punctuated by a pair of pits traversing the room full of rusty iron blades. After some experimentation to learn the properties of the surfaces the party began their traversal, with Malformed Melech transforming Verminous Vohrun into an eagle to carry a rope to the hanger of the far door. Once there, the dwarf was reverted to his true form and secured the rope. Malformed Melech managed to work his way across the taut rope with some difficulty. Moving Defective Diva’s heavily armored form across the room proved nearly disastrous, with her becoming suspended over the pit of spikes as the door began to swing open. She caught herself and managed to hold herself precariously until the other two readied themselves to reel her in. She dove and slid on her stomach as the other two pulled in the rope as quickly as possible, resulting in a few bruises but no lasting damage. Continuing on the party entered another bizarre chamber, a multi-tiered inverted ziggurat containing several terrariums of strange monsters. The party began shattering the glass dividers between the terrariums, forcing the different types of beasts into combat as they were swept into each other by the rushing water. The party kept their distance for the most part, targeting the isolated stragglers as they progressed downwards. With the last of their foes slain they were left with a problem, the door they needed to progress through was under 15 feet of water. Malformed Melech dove into the water, first to loot a chest and then to open the door. He managed to pry the door open the force of the rushing water pulled him down the rapidly filling tunnel and pressing him under the water against a drainage grate. Defective Diva tried to aid him by sending the looted chest down the current to him but all that accomplished was nearly crushing the suffocating tiefling. He managed to hold his breath well enough that he was shaken by the ordeal but otherwise unharmed as the last of the waters drained away. The party entered the chamber beyond the tunnel finding a sumptuously furnished room occupied by a halfling calling himself Qesnef. He offered the group his hospitality which Defective Diva happily partook of while the other two remained suspicious. He told the party that he was part of another group of adventures that entered the complex and found the sword Blackrazor. He said he slew his companions with the sword, intending to keep it for himself but had to hide it when he was about to be captured by Keraptis. He told the party that the room was enchanted to always prevent the last person remaining in it from leaving and he urged them two split up, that he might show them the location of Blackrazor. When they refused his offer and began openly discussing prying the information out of him with force he grew angry and grew invisible. Verminous Vohrun lit the room with Faerie Fire revealing Qesnef’s true form, that of a massive blue-skinned demonic looking creature. The Cloned Three fled to the hallway bracing the door but were thwarted when he turned into a cloud of gas and pursued them through the cracks. A bitter fight erupted in the close quarters of the hall but the party emerged victorious, through badly bloodied. Searching the room the party found the Legendary Blackrazor casually shoved behind a divan, along with a pile of other treasures. The sword called out to the party, offering great power to them if they would use it to crush their enemies, provided they feed it a soul at least once a month. Verminous Vohrun resisted the offer and also prevented Malformed Melech from acquiring the sword… for a time. The party rested once more before returning to a room they had passed earlier, one that held an odd river floating in mid-air. They boarded a pair of canoes and journeyed down the river, hoping to find a way around the friction-less chamber to reach the other wings of the complex. At the end of the tunnel they were ambushed by a Knight and his coterie of men at arms who attempted to rest the party from their canoes to the ground with nets. Vastly outnumbered and at a severe disadvantage Malformed Melech loosed an explosion of hellfire that decimated friend and foe alike. Avoiding the worst of the blast the party fought back against the reduced crowd of men with Defective Diva riding her canoe into battle like a mounted knight on horseback. The party won the battle, recovering a key to exit the room from the knight’s corpse. While they rested Malformed Melech offered up an idea for the party revenge themselves upon the Red Wizards who forced them to plumb this deadly place for them. He would bond himself to Blackrazor, and in so doing being able to summon it to his hand at will. He suggested that they return the sword to Octavious, only to recover it later by this method, robbing the wizards of the reward they sought to deliver to Szazz Tam. The party returned to the entrance pausing to converse with Cynthara once more. She told them that she had been killed by previous intruders on occasion but was bound to reform in this place eternally. Malformed Melech offered her a dark mercy, the obliteration of her soul by Blackrazor. She accepted this offer with some trepidation and was laid low by the blade, fading away into nothing. This act energized Malformed Melech with a surge of energy, reinforcing his vigor greatly. They progressed through the central passage, pausing briefly to stash their heavy coinage they had been accumulating, before arriving at a large water filled chamber. They quickly discovered that the water held areas where the water hid sudden drops into the water. Using a weighted sounding line they found a path through the room that required only a single leap across a gap. Before they could leap they were met by a beautiful woman who emerged from the water below. She beckoned them but their understanding off this mad place caused them to rightfully assume a trap. The creature melted away into a pile of vegetation sinking below the waves to harry them from a distance but avoiding open conflict. Exiting the room the party found a series of steel waterproof bulwark doors blocking the passage ahead. They pushed through the doors finding perhaps the strangest room yet. It was a transparent bubble thrust into the boiling water-filled center of the geyser at the heart of the mountain. At the end of the bubble they found a massive fiddler crab the size of a cottage perched over a chest. Sensing one of their prizes was near they engaged the crab in combat. It proved a formidable opponent, crushing Verminous Vohrun, nearly killing him in a single blow. While Defective Diva and Malformed Melech distracted the crab with a series of blows while Vohrun prepared a fear spell. Suddenly terrified of the dwarf the Crab attempted to exit the room through the sole passage, one significantly smaller than the crab. In it’s violent terrified trashing it ruptured the bubble and the chamber began to deflate and rapidly fill with boiling water which caused the bulwark doors to seal, trapping the party in the room. During this time Defective Diva heard the voice of the trident Wave in her mind, calling her to take up the worship of the mysterious sea god the trident serves. The weapon promised to save the trio if she would convert on the spot. Defective Diva opted instead to save them with her own power, she reached out within divine force and turned back the waters, holding the collapse of the bubble at bay, buying them time to escape. The trio carved a path through the mammoth boiled crab and broke through the bulwarks protecting the complex from the deluge. Realizing they didn’t have enough time to escape they attempted to fuse the final damaged door behind them with a wall of fire summoned by Malformed Melech. This proved insufficient however and boiling water began to break through, threatening to engulf the party. At this moment Defective Diva accepted the offer made by Wave and the three were encapsulated in a cube of shimmering force. The cube and its occupants were carried by the bursting water into the deep room below as the complex flooded. A loud burping of air signaled the full collapse of the bubble and the complex began to shake and the floor fell away. They cube, along with the rubble of the room fell downward into the heart of the massive geyser that made up the center of mountain. As the cube came to rest over the roiling pillar of gasses erupting from deep in the earth it was launched upward at tremendous velocity, ejecting from the peak of the mountain and sailing through the air. With the ground rapidly approaching each of the three shattered the glass beads they were given by the wizards and dissolved away a split second before the cube slammed into the countryside. They found themselves in a heap in front of an amused Octavious, who demanded the weapons they recovered. Octavious smiled and promised the three that they had much to do. Malformed Melech smiled as well. The Stone Tooth The party, more or less recovered from the Battle of Triboar, prepared to set out from the town. They decided on a course of seeking the lost dwarven hold of Khundrukar in the Starmetal Hills before pressing on to Phandalin and Neverwinter. Before they left town they checked in with Ghelryn to see if he had any additional information on the location then the crude map he had provided them the previous evening. He responded that the map, while crude, constituted the best information he had, he had drawn it from memory from the map of a planned clan expedition to the hold nearly 50 years prior. He told The Three that the hill they were looking for looked like a jagged Orc tooth pointing towards the sky. On their way out of town the party encountered Sildar Hallwinter preparing to leave as well. He stated that he was going to Neverwinter by way of Phandalin to report on the giant attack. They also encountered a clearly upset Othovir who was headed to Silverymoon to settle some “family matters” in the wake of his lost livelihood. He asked the others to look him up in Silvermoon if they ventured there and off-offhandedly mentioned to Melech that he had a brother with a similar set of horns. The party set out on the Triboar Trail westward. Toward the end of the first day they encountered a bedraggled Orc tied to a tree along the roadside. The language barrier proved difficult but they managed to learn that he became frightened when shown the map of the Stone Tooth, peaking the group’s interest. Vohrun gave him some comforting food and water and moved him to another tree at their campsite while Diva prayed for the divine guidance to understand his language. The following morning she was able to bless Vohrun with the ability to speak and understand the Orcish tongue. He spoke at length with the Orc, unfortunately named Pogrom, learning several things; The Orc was part of the Many Arrows Orcish Kingdom to the north and his warband had wandered south after the end of the War of the Silver Marches. While Pogrom was out of their camp most of his fellows were wiped out. He and the remaining survivors roamed the area for several months before finding the Stone Tooth. Apparently they were beset by “Tiny Devils” inhabiting the area around the Stone Tooth. He was chased alone back to the Triboar Trail where he encountered some travelers that he tried to warn in hope that they would shelter him. They repaid him by beating him and tying him to a tree to die from exposure. Vohrun thanked the Orc for his help and gifted him some supplies to hopefully help his journey northward to the Kingdom of Many Arrows. Pogrom thanked Vohrun and told him that they would make many sacrifices to Gruumsh in his name. The party continued along the road with Diva providing an update to Matriarch Benezia. Benezia responded saying that she was headed to Citadel Felbarr to investigate problems in the Silver Marches. After another day the party turned north, finding a hidden scene of violence along the edge of the Triboar Trail, a crossbow bolt was found pinning a small tuft of scalp to a nearby tree and a pool of blood was intentionally covered with leaves to disguise it. The party rested for evening a few miles to the north of road, watched over for the first time by an angelic entity summoned by Diva known as “Mother”. The journey to the north continued for another day and half as the party pushed into the uplands of the Starmetal Hills. On the morning of the second day they were greeted by the first scattered snowfall of the rapidly approaching winter season. At last the party spotted the peak of the stone tooth through the pines. A wispy trail of smoke rose from somewhere on the slope. The party proceeded carefully around the hill, avoiding making the steep climb up towards the peak but instead circling around within the treeline. Eventually they spotted a cleft in the trees that they found was evidence of an old narrow stone path that switch-backed its way up the southeastern flank of the hill. It ended in a hidden stair that climbed up the cliff to a ledge above with a commanding view of the valley below. There they found a single sentry, a kobold, watching down the valley, shielding its eyes from the midday sun. Melech loosed a volley of eldritch blasts that sent the poor creature plunging to it’s almost certain death. This attack did not go unnoticed however and quickly shouts in a barking, hissing dialect went out followed the ringing of a gong. The party pushed around the ledge to another cleft in the rock that sheltered the approach to the mountain door. As they advanced arrow slots opened up and they begun to take fire. Melech hid their approach with a globe of utter blackness and they moved to the courtyard approaching the strong dwarven doors to the hold. Additional arrow slits opened up to fire on the group but their occupants were quickly dispatched by spells hurled by Vohrun and Melech. Their approach now secured the group gathered by the door. For all her ferociousness Rhenda was unable to burst through the thick dwarven doors but a shattering blast of energy from Vohrun quickly blew them open. The team emerged into a chamber split in two by a massive crevasse where several more kobolds waited including a nearly dwaf-sized member of the species which seemed to bark challenges to the group. The battle was frantic as more of the kobolds emerged from hidden passages on the wall and a group of winged kobolds began to sabotage the bridge across the cavern that Rhenda had attempted to charge across. Some of the kobolds who joined the fray brought bizarre weapons to bear at the group including alchemist fire, acid, green slime and a swarm of bees. Preoccupied by these unusual tactics the party was unable to prevent the bridge from being cut and it fell away with both Rhenda and Melech atop it. Both managed to grab onto the opposite ledges of the room but Rhenda’s situation was dire as she clung to the lip of the cliff by her figures as several assailants attempted to knock her into the abyss below. Diva hurled daggers and hammers at Rhenda’s assailants, while ignoring the pain of the slime dissolving her own armor and flesh. Meanwhile Vohrun spoke the words that shattered the tiny minds of a thousand bees at once. Melech, thinking quickly transformed the imperiled gnome into a massive raven that managed to escape her attackers, flitting back to the other side of the chamber. With all of its allies slain the massive kobold rang the gong once more and fell back through a door on the far side of the chamber which was opened for a moment by more of it’s fellows. Before changing Rhenda back to her true form Melech had her tie a line to the opposite cliff to facilitate their crossing. Tiny Devils After scouting the firing positions the kobolds had used to try and hold them off the party resolved to continue on. Vohrun was the first to cross the rope spanning the chasm, ever the showman he attempted to tightrope across. He slipped from his perch but managed to catch himself on the line and complete the crossing. Securing another line to the far side to hold onto he created a much easier mode of traversal for his comrades. Diva crossed without incident but when Melech attempted to cross he nearly fell and came under fire from a hidden position above them. Still he managed to cross unscathed and proceeded to suppress the position above with blasts of eldritch energy and a display of frustration involving a gong. Pressing on they found a natural cavern that had been smoothed and was currently being used to store large caches of supplies and trade goods. In addition this warehouse also held sentient cargo in the form of two Orcs of Pogrom’s tribe that were captured by the Kobolds. Though they seem possessed of the same fear of the “tiny demons” as Pogrom, Vohrun, assisted by Diva’s magics convinced them that he was a faithful follower of the Orcish deity Gruumsh and inspired them to battle on his behalf for their place in the afterlife. Diva, along with the newly rescued orcs investigated a cooking fire in side chamber. As she inspected the rendering liquid within the pot a jar of fatty oil was thrown down from the chimney by an unnamed assailant, igniting in a blast on Diva and the two Orcs. Undeterred the three pushed on further into the storage chamber, finding a large passage stuffed with precarious stacks of crates, barrels and sacks as well as a cistern. Melech noticed a rustling from one of the piles of goods and moved aside a cloth partially covering the heap to reveal a ballista, loaded and aimed directly at him. Luckily he caught them before they were ready to fire and the bolt sailed instead into one of his new orcish companions, ending his short-lived quest for glory. A terrible melee broke out as kobolds burst out all around the group, collapsing piles of crates and barrels into unstable heaps on the ground and setting them on fire. The three cut down kobolds left and right, destroying any enemy that appeared before them. The smoke from the fires filled the air of the chamber, blocking their sight and burning their lungs. The remaining kobolds slew the remaining orc and fled into the smokey darkness, leaving the party conspicuously missing their bodyguard, Rhenda Thistlehill who was last heard engaging with a number of foes out of site. The Three began a desperate search, trying to put out fires with water from the cistern. As they investigated they found a number of chambers off of the storage area, a barracks guarded by a old dwarven gas trap, a storeroom protected by a crude trap designed to drop flesh-eating slime on someone coming through the door and another sleeping chamber with a curious hole in the ceiling. Vohrun crawled up through the hole emerging into the concealed firing position above the chasm at the mountain door. He attempted to subdue the winged kobold standing watch there for interrogation but the beast slipped away into the open air and flew down into the chasm mocking him. Becoming desperate to find their ally the three investigated a dead end passageway where they had heard activity during the fight. They found a hidden door there which led to a small chamber festooned with yellowed skulls hanging from the ceiling and occupied by an odd kobold with fake, leather and wood wings leading another pair of the devils. The tiny sorcerer blasted Melech with rays of flame but had chosen it’s target poorly, as he shrugged off the blasts. Diva charged in to bash the sorcerer with her hammer before Vohrun summoned an air of dread that caused all three of the kobolds to flee to the north, casting open doors into a grand chamber featuring an enormous stair descending further into the mountain. Diva felled one of the fleeing kobolds with a thrown axe but the other two escaped into the darkness. Vohrun quickly looted a potion, scroll and silver from the desk of the sorcerer and the three gathered around the gaping maw of the mountain… from which they could only hear the sound of rushing water. Buying Time The three searched the large chamber at the top of the stair, finding several burnt Orc and Dwarf skeletons. The dwarven remains seemed to be more recent but both sets had been clearly left her for decades at least. Vohrun offered up a prayer to the fallen dwarves and marked himself with their ashes. Meanwhile Diva investigated the northern doorway, finding holes in the ceiling. Suspecting a trap the three opened the door by means of a rope and were greeted by a great gout of flame as alchemist fire was pumped into the room. The door began to close but Diva managed to block it with the gong that occupied the room and quickly disabled the pump and counterweight that was rearming the trap. Seeking to fight the next battle on their terms Melech requested the incantation of Tongues from Diva, and used his own magics to amplify his voice down to the tunnels below, issuing a demand for the return of Rhenda. He was met by silence, then eventually by a cadence of three short rings of a gong, followed by a lingering ring. He returned this call in kind and was met by a steady ringing of a gong below every 10 seconds or so. The three considered dismantling the trap mechanism but opted instead to rearm it and proceeded downward. Further down the tunnel the stair was crossed by a cold flowing stream. Opting to follow the stream rather than the main path the party found a small side chamber where a dwarf had taken refuge, only to be beset by a flock of Stirges, nesting in the ceiling above. The creatures made no attempt to attack the party and Vohrun was able to recover a potion vial from a bag at his side, leaving the gold within for the dead. The stream continued to a sizable chamber with several exits. After examining the tracks left by the kobolds in the muddy back the three followed the stream through a narrow opening, drenching themselves in the freezing water. They emerged into a chamber clearly used by the kobolds, within it they found a warm forge, fresh orcish corpses and a mud plug covering a passage beyond. Pulling the plug Melech entered the chamber beyond finding a warren of tunnels. He observed numerous kobolds directing others of the their kind to gather up the juveniles and eggs in a frantic attempt to flee. Melech was spotted and quickly challenged by the chieftain of the tribe. Melech threatened to annihilate the smallest members of the tribe unless Rhenda was returned to the party. The chieftain mulled his offer, choosing his words carefully, demanding a vow from Melech that his people would not be harmed if he cooperated. Melech for his part maintained that the tribes survival was contingent upon his opinion of the information given. During this back and forth the small kobolds and their guardians moved out of view, with the last one ringing a small bell. The chieftain grinned and exalted that he had already ensured his clan’s continued existence before engaging Diva with a rain of blows while several of it’s fellows moved on the party from hidden positions. Diva responded by summoning Mother to watch over her while maintaining a defensive posture. Melech’s approach was decidedly not defensive, as he detonated a fireball in the midst of the party gravely injuring several of the attackers and scorching his friends as well. The battle was fought in close quarters but the party began to overpower the best warriors the kobold tribe could offer. The sorcerer they had face earlier managed to escape, chased off with a series of spells thrown by Vohrun in it’s direction. Finally all that was left was the battered chieftain who sensing that his end was near lessened his resistance, taunting the party that their victory here would be hollow, that his tribe would endure and their master would extract vengeance upon the group. Melech again demanded Rhenda’s whereabouts, offering the chief a reprieve from a tortured existence and painful death if he obliged. He opted instead to take his own life, jamming his poison-tipped spear through his own head. The aggressive poison was enough to insure that he expired immediately, preventing Diva from stabilizing him for Melech’s intended punishments. Diva was able to resuscitate the kobold warrior who had previously faced them in the chasm. In exchange for his life he told the party that she had been taken by the “Speaker” to the tribes master beyond the “Door of the Dead Ones”. The party caught their breath for a bit to regain their strength. Vohrun found a hatchery and a workshop used for some manner of creation in the southern chambers of the warren. Diva meanwhile looted the corpse of the chief, finding his valuables within a leather bag that seemed to defy the laws of dimensionality, possessing more internal volume then external size. She also found the chieftain's quarters, decorated with a massive relief carving on a dragon in flight across the full length of the room. Pressing on the party found their way into a dwarven tomb through a blocked passage. There they found numerous sarcophagi prepared, but only 3 were marked with the names and deeds of their occupants. Beyond this area they found a massive cavern that was apparently utilized by the kobolds as a mineral mine and a farm for various sizable fungi. The walls of several ledges were adorned with more elaborate reliefs depicting a history of kobold-kind and their relationships to the race of dragons. At the far end of the room they found a massive steel door adorned with the smithmark of Durgeddin. Force failed to dislodge the door so Melech set to it with his set of thieves tools. However the masterful Dwarven engineering proved too difficult for him to circumvent in this way. The party began to fan out, eventually finding a cavern where the river descended down a waterfall deeper into the mountain. Nearby they found a staircase spiraling further into the depths. A Price to Pay The party traveled down the stair to a dank wet portion of the caves, finding a room a the base of the waterfall shrouded in the mists. On one side of the cavern they found a pair of storerooms, one completely empty and the other full to the brim. Flood waters from the nearby stream had inundated both chambers at some point in the past, ruining the most of the contents. A byzantine ledger found by Diva pointed to this room being used by the original dwarven inhabitants of the hold before it fell. The party progressed along the edge of the subterranean river, the low ceilings of the cavern pressing in oppressively. They found another storeroom, flooded with several feet of fetid stagnant water on the far bank of the river. Within it Vohrun and Melech found remnant corpse of a an orcish invader with two silvered glass vials, one labeled with the dwarven rune for Air, the other for Water. Extracting themselves from the muck of the sunken chamber the party continued along the bank of the River until Melech spotted something catching the light and reflecting it on the far bank. Drawn to this like a magpie Melech leapt across the river, easily clearing the water but landing sprawled out in the mud on the far bank. Flat on his belly in the mud Melech could see that source of the reflections was bits of colored, worn glass spread around the mud. No sooner did he come to this realization than the stalagmite adjacent to him began to shudder, opening a single red bulbous eye and extruding four lightning quick tentacles that lashed at the party. Melech was seized by a pair of the monstrosity's tentacles and drawn towards a toothy maw that appeared in the stalagmite as it split itself open. Diva was seized by one of the tentacles and dragged into the flow of the stream, left hanging there to drown. Thinking quickly she stabbed the tentacle with the poisoned spearhead she took from the kobold chief and saw the same immediate necrosis spread along the tentacle that she had previously observed obliterate the chief's skull. The tentacle released her and she was washed downstream eventually stopping herself on a low hanging stalagmite. Vohrun leapt across the river to engage the body of the beat while melech attempted to pelt it with spells. The creature lashed a tentacl around Vohrun’s throat and proceeded to reel Melech into it’s maw and delivered a savage bite through Melech with it’s serrated teeth. As he lost consciousness Melech summoned a final rebuke of hellfire to scorch the creature, causing it to drop Melech’s body. At this moment Diva returned from the next chamber, blasting the creature with holy fire and rejuvenating her companions with divine energies. Vohrun seized this opportunity to drive his axe into the exposed flesh of the creature, rending through it’s soft interior and ending it once and for all. Following the battle Vohrun rent the creature further, digging through it’s strange anatomy he eventually found a gizzard-equivalent organ, full of gravel and a pair of beautifully faceted cut emeralds. The three pressed on, finding an abandoned set of cells beyond the warehouses. One of the cells was locked, it contained the remains of a dwarf, seemingly left to expire in this cell. In his hands he held a beautiful lute, a product of delicate elvish craft. As Vohrun handled the fine instrument he quickly became aware that the dwarf had secreted a steel key into the body of the instrument, one that the party quickly intuited would fit the massive door that blocked their path forward. The party returned upward to the massive glittering cavern they passed through previously. Passing by the carved friezes they noted a feature they hadn't noticed before, a carving of a small gnome. Pausing to examine the carvings in more detail they pieced together that this was a depiction of the creation myth of the kobold race, with dragons and a single massive kobold being featured prominently. The gnome depicted was portrayed as the antagonist of the story, destroying the great works of the kobold icon and crushing it’s brethren in the rubble. Worried about the implications of this carving for Rhenda they pressed through the doorway finding it led to a large stair to an ornate antechamber dominated by three statues of dwarven warriors. Grown wary from encountering several dwarven traps earlier the party slowly began examining the room, taking the utmost caution. Vohrun discovered a telltale scuff that led him to locate a hidden door behind one of the statues. Not content to press forward without checking the room further, Diva carefully opened one of the doors on the wall, which quickly was revealed to be a false door as the ax wielding arms of the statues swung down harmlessly, if loudly. The party climbed up the stair behind the statue, drawing closely to the sound of a forge being worked. Opening the door they found themselves in the grand central hall of a Dwarven hold, lit by torches around the perimeter. A voice called out unseen from the room in heavily accented dwarven, ordering the party to depart immediately. The party conversed for a time with the invisible voice who eventually identified himself as Ghared Deephammer, who Vohrun suspected was one of the deep dwarves known as the Duergar. He menaced the party but did not attack, instead telling them that Rhenda was taken to a Dragon named Nightscale, lurking beneath the hold. After learning that they had decimated the kobold tribe he offered up a deal to them, if they could push their way through the haunted halls to the north he would be able to reinforce his tentative position in the halls. He ushered them through a door into the hold’s shrine to the dwarven pantheon. There they found the altar desecrated and a dwarven skeleton in full plate bound to the altar with heavy chains and an odd adamantite rod with the bust of a donkey at each end. Vohrun sat in the pews and began to play a funerary dirge for the dead dwarf. At the end of his song a withered orcish husk at the base of the altar began to reach out to grasp Vohrun by the leg. A quick but brutal melee ensued as the orcish wight was joined by two massive collections of bones that formed themselves into a floating amalgamation resembling massive skeletons. Diva spoke words that banished the undead from this holy place and they began to retreat from her sight. Vohrun took an opportunity to engage one of these foes, and in so doing broke whatever hold over it Diva maintained. This proved to be an error as the foe pummeled Vohrun into the ground before Diva and Melech were able to blast it apart and end the assault. Utterly depleted and fearing an upcoming confrontation with Rhenda’s captors the three opted to rest in this once-sacred place to gather their strength for the trials ahead. The Black Mere The party took a moment to assess the desecrated shrine as they settled in for their rest. During this time Melech busied himself trying to ascertain the properties of the odd Immovable Rod that secured the corpse to the altar. He found after some examination that it had a keyword inscribed which allowed it to be removed from the altar. Some experimentation revealed that the rod could hold it’s position even in midair when activated. Diva offered the now unbound dwarven warrior funerary rites to try and offer it’s soul some rest. What sleep they could find was restless and uneasy as the faint sounds and shifting shadows of this place played tricks on their eyes. Collecting their gear the party re-entered the great hall of the hold, finding the Duergar had somewhat relaxed their guard, with Ghared Deephammer laying casually across the throne of the hold’s lord. The party continued to the remaining northern halls finding a sacked residential area. This place was cleared of anything of worth, in fact many of the halls were stripped clean with the exception of the strewn corpses of long-dead dwarves and orcs. The air held palpable menace and the three began to experience numerous odd phenomena that made them uneasy. Vohrun opened his senses to the presence of otherworldly beings and was able to sense a powerful undead being to the east as well as countless minor spirits coursing through this place. Cautiously they made their way down the hall, finding a much more opulently decorated room, one whose furnishings were still present. From the markings on the massive rug, tapestries and a variety of papers strewn across the desk the party came to believe this was the quarters of a senior administrator of the hold, one who prized his family’s arcane magical traditions. Melech noticed a flutter of a nearby tapestry and strode across the room to investigate. As he did so the rug covering the floor rolled up and constricted around him. Melech began to attempt to burn his way out of the rug while Diva and Vohrun attempted to pull him free. Melech was freed from the rug and the Three managed to damage it enough that it ended it’s assault. Pressing on to the east the party found a charnel scene, a central courtyard coated with the bodies of the dead, both dwarven and orcish. The air took on a ghostly chill as the spirit of a Dwarf clad in chains appeared from the pool of water in the center of the square. It ordered the party to leave this place to the dead but relented when Vohrun insisted that they wanted to help. The ghost introduced himself as Durgeddin Foehammer and told the party the story of how Nightscale engineered the fall of Khundrukar and slew his allies so that it wouldn’t have to share the spoils. Durgeddin’s spirit implored the party to purge his halls of his tribe’s killer and pointed them towards a southern wall which they quickly found obscured a passage that led to a massive sinkhole. The party descended down a chain later into the depths finding another subterranean stream flowing into a large lake-filled cavern with a high vaulted ceiling strewn with chains, manacles and gibbits. Across the lake they observed a kobold or ornate raiment gesticulating wildly while calling out in it’s odd tongue into the darkness. He stood atop the water of the lake in front of Rhenda, who was tied to a post on the shore of the lake. As the kobold became aware of the party he shouted even more wildly, but was quickly engulfed as a black toothy maw emerged from the water below him, thrashing wildly before spitting him at the party. Following this show of dominance Nightscale parlayed with the party, Melech sought to deceive the wyrm into believing that he was a red wizard who came to tell Nightscale of a prophecy of his future greatness. The dragon indulged itself in this praise but was clearly suspicious. When Vohrun’s attempt to flatter the dragon with a poem he, possibly inadvertently, insulted the dragon it’s mood quickly began to sour and it broke the post holding Rhenda , submerging her into the water still restrained. Melech beckoned the dragon closer, allowing him to transport himself magically to rescue Rhenda. The party began a fighting retreat, hoping to make it to the ladder but was cut off when the dragon burst through the bridge out of the room. Falling back the other way the party and the beast each traded grievous injuries. During this melee a loud clanging of an anvil began to be heard through the chamber and the spirits of dwarven warriors began to coalesce from the ceiling and descend to aid the party. Bolstered by their newfound allies the party pressed the attack, driving Nightscale back. When the dragon attempted to submerge to flee the fight it was restrained by ghostly chains from the ceiling that dragged it back to the surface. Vohrun grabbed the ring that permitted the kobold dragonspeaker to tread across the water and ran after the beast. Landing a killing blow as Melech and Diva pelted it from the shoreline. With the the room fell silent as the dragon Nightscale began to slip below the surface of the water for the last time. The Forge of Fury The party stood quiet for a moment, struck by their victory over the dread wyrm. As the moment past the dwarven spirits of Khundrukar that had done battle beside them began to fade away, but not before offering a solemn salute to the Three. Quickly the party descended on the island in the middle of the subterranean lake, eager to pour through the dragons riches. The nest on the island was principally constructed of all manner of weapons, woven together and dusted with riches into a massive cradle for the beast. Within this hoard the party claimed a new set of Mithral Armor for Diva, a bounty of coin and gems, numerous weapons and a few magical nicknacks. Before they departed they sawed the lifeless head of Nightscale from it’s body. The party considered resting in this place and weighed their options for dealing with the Duergar but they were interrupted by distant noise from above. Fearing that they would be beset by foes they moved back towards the ladder to the hold above. Diva used her magic to extend her senses to the chamber above, seeing a scene of madness and the Duergar were beset by something unseen, they turned on each other, driving their blades into each other, with the last Duergar taking it’s own life. Suspecting that the spirits of Khundrukar were behind this scene the party hurried up the stair, using a secret passage they located to emerge into the duergar controlled portion of the hold. There they found a scene of carnage with nearly all of the duergar slain. Two survivors, Ghared Deephammer and one of his men stood back to back huddled in the dying light of the campfire. After a quick exchange the party made it clear they were in no mood to save the grey dwarves and the spirit of Durgeddin seized Ghared from below, possessing his body and using it to slay the other survivor. Durgeddin, wearing Ghared, thanked the party for dispatching Nightscale, allowing him and the other spirits to finally find their rest. He offered to work his forge one last time before departing to the halls of his ancestors, he requested from each of them a worthy weapon to work his craft upon. They offered up Diva’s Lightbringer, Melech’s Bone Spear and Vohrun’s Treebane and left the spirit to it’s final labors. Hours later the forge fell quiet and they re-entered the room, finding the spirit, now free of it’s shackles and of Ghared’s form standing proudly over the reforged weapons. The spirit thanked the “five” of them and began to depart the realm. Melech quickly asked who the spirit was referring to as the fifth member of the party and Durgeddin pointed to Vohrun and replied “The old codger hugging this one like a newlywed”. With that the spirit passed on and the three made their way out of the Stone tooth to the surface. The trek was cold and the road somewhat challenging but the party was unhurried and the trip largely uneventful. On the side of the road they passed a dilapidated cottage that reminded Melech of a time when he first left home with his good friend Horeak in Neverwinter. Two days outside of Phandalin the party was preparing to break camp and was approached by three Paladins of Torm on horseback. The leader of the knights was Knight-Commander Yorrick Farren, who expressed an immediate distaste for the party and anger that Eamon had entrusted them with the investigation of the Nightstone. He demanded the Arcane Cypher that they had found within Wave Echo Cave. When they refused he withdrew the protection of Paladins of Torm from them and took Rhenda back with him to Neverwinter. As they were riding away Rhenda dropped a small brass token, one she had explained previously was what allowed her to locate the party on the road initially. Short their diminutive bodyguard the three continued down the road, arriving in Phandalin on the afternoon of the sixth day. They quickly rode up the motte on the western edge of town finding a reconstructed Tresendar Manor atop it. There they were welcomed by a joyful Gundren Rockseeker who invited them into their manor and began to give them the grand tour. The Feast of the Moon The party emerged from their rooms and ventured downstairs in their newly constructed Manor. There they found Gundren, Gristle Pete and a few others preparing for the Feast of the Moon. Gundren was assembling a small shrine in honor of his brother Tharden, who was killed by the Black Spider’s forces several months ago. Gundren looked over the books with the party, confirming a few details of their arrangement before a runner arrived with a message from the mine. Gundren asked the three to pay the mine a visit and check on the reported noises coming from a newly uncovered passage in the old tunnels. The three were led to the mine with great haste by an energetic halfling who ushered them into the mine. There the party reunited with Nundro, who they had rescued from the Black Spider some two months prior. He told them that his foreman Amos and two guards had gone to check out the newly opened tunnel after the noises were first heard. The party descends through the mine finding a winded dwarven miner working a bellows to supply fresh air to the far end of the tunnel. He hadn’t seen Amos in two or three hours and was getting ready to quit pumping but the party bribed him to keep going while they investigated. The tunnel eventually opens into a finished, though dilapidated underground structure of dwarven construction. There the party finds one of the guards Nundro had sent who informs that party that Amos is in the other room, talking to a Human. Amos and the other guard Helgret are each found in the adjacent chambers of what appears to be a small complex of workshops. Helgret seems to be caring for a dwarven miner who seems to be in shock rolling back and forth on a stone table. When Vohrun inquires about the man Helgret informs him that the miner is waking from a thousand year sleep. The trio move to the other room where they find the foreman Amos finishing a conversation with an elderly human man leaning on a staff. He tells them that his name is Kerim, and he was of the wizards of the Phandelver Pact. He claims this chamber was for experimenting with new magical item creation. It was set this far down a side tunnel so the energies would not disrupt the spellforge. One day there was cave-in that blocked off this remote portion of the complex. The air began to foul so Kerim placed the two miners stuck there with him and then himself under the effect of a sequester spell, causing a state of suspended animation until they were found. This was intended to only be a few weeks but apparently from what he can gather from talking to Amos it’s been much-much longer, more than a millennia, in fact. Kerim asked that someone from party see to his dwarven companions who were recovering in the other room. Diva and Vohrun obliged while Melech stayed behind. Melech began to question the wizard but was surprised when the demeanor of the wizard suddenly shifted and his eyes flashed with violet light. Melech fought off an attempt to subsume his personality and reacted quickly driving his spear through Kerim. Kerim for his part shrugged off the blow and began to flow around the weapon like a liquid reforming largely unharmed. Alerted by the noise Vohrun and Diva were surprised to find the partially comatose dwarf lashing out at them with ruby tentacles. The creature tried to invade Vohrun’s mind but upon failing cursed “Uther! You cannot keep me trapped here forever”. Diva and Vohrun started a fighting retreat to the center hall while Melech detonated a fireball, obliterating the forms of Kerim and Amos. The appearance of the chambers began to change as an illusion encompassing them began to fade, revealing the chambers to be in much worse shape than they initially observed. The floors and walls were pockmarked with numerous small holes from which the tentacles of the creature attacked from and retreated into. Vohrun and Diva’s flight was interrupted when Helgret revealed herself to be another manifestation of this creature blocking their way. During this time Vohrun heard a distant voice echoing in the back of his mind “Flame, it fears the flame”. Melech’s attempt to pull back was thwarted when he was telekinetically lifted and thrown through the air against the far wall. He opted then to investigate the holes on the floor, finding access to a chamber below. Knocking in some of the stones he leapt down. Finding the central hub of the creature, a massive grotesque blob of ruby-red ooze, pulsing with a faint inner light and covered with the faces that slowly formed and dissipated along it’s surface. Melech summoned a rift in space from the far realms to encompass the creature and a moment later it grew silent. Back above Diva and Vohrun had dispatched the Helgret form of the creature and began to look for Melech, only to be surprised as the core of the creature slipped through a doorway in space and landed between them and the exit from the chamber. Diva went to help Melech out of the hole while Vohrun, noticing that the remaining dwarven guard had a ruby filament connecting him to the ground opened fire on the guard with a blast from his Ring of the Ram. The creature responded by muddling Vohrun’s mind, causing him to slip into a confused torpor for a moment. Melech and Diva unleashed spells at the beast but the turning point came when Diva managed to banish the beast from the world for a time. This allowed the three to set a trap for it’s return. They bailed hot lava from the forge onto the ground surrounding the point of the creatures departure and prepared to set themselves upon it. When it blinked back into existence it’s defeat was already guaranteed. The three set upon and hacked it’s form into pieces, which caught fire and began to smolder over the molten rock. With the abomination dead the party searched the caverns, then satisfied that there was no other exit or lurking horrors they departed, pausing briefly to confirm that the dwarven miner working the bellows was not an unknowable horror. The informed Nundro who after some fatalistic musings agreed to close the mine for the day and return with then to the Manor. Back to Where it All Began As the party returned to their manor they were greeted by a bouquet of delicious smells. When they entered the common room of the manor they found a veritable feast which they partook of with Gundren, Nundro and their miners. Following the meal Gundren and Nundro attended to Tharden’s grave while Vohrun headed to the edge of town to construct his own memorial to contemplate. After some time he briefly visited the sleeping giant taproom, finding the Halfling proprietress Grista alone inside, still coping with an injury she suffered when the party attacked the Redbrands in her bar. After a quiet drink Vohrun departed once more into the cold. Meanwhile Diva was getting to know a few of the miners, learning where they came from and picking up a few details of the rebuilding of Gauntlgrym. The following morning the party came to an arrangement with Gundren, investing 5000 gold pieces into the mining venture to secure an additional 5% share in the profits. Diva left a number of dwarven weapons from Khundrukar on consignment with the smith in Phandalin before the party went to visit Sister Garaele at her shrine. She told them a little more about what happened in Triboar after they left and asked the party to give Sildar her best if they encountered him in Neverwinter. The party departed for Neverwinter later than morning, beginning the 6 day journey as the weather began to shift for the worse. They stopped briefly when Vohrun spotted a dilapidated chest that contained a simple, crudely maid steel crown, sized for a large head. About a day outside of Neverwinter the party encountered a sacked farm wagon being investigated by Emhismoda Crownshatterer and his fellow mercenaries from the Scale and Coil mercenary company. Investigating the scene they learned that the wagon was apparently attacked by a giant and massive wolf. After learning that Lord Neverember of Neverwinter had placed a bounty on Giant heads after the recent attacks the party proposed a contest with the mercenaries to see who could track and bring down the giant responsible. Both teams set off at a gallop, hot on the trail. While the mercenaries were the better trackers the party managed to coax their mounts to a higher speed, getting ahead of the mercenaries and then giving them the slip. After following a braided stream channel to the shore they found a massive Frost Giant and his Winter Wolf companion preparing to board a rowboat. The party attacked quickly gaining the upper hand initially when Diva banished the wolf to another plane of existence for a time. Melech charged the giant dealing grevious wounds but quickly found himself the victim of a brutal reprisal before being seized by the giant and hurled at Vohrun. The party encircled the giant raining blows upon it. It’s counterattack felled Melech and broke Diva’s concentration, freeing the winter wolf from its prison. Vohrun revived Melech who quickly brought down the fleeing giant with a wall of flames. The wolf attached the party killing Vohruns horse but was subdued with a mixture of lassoing and curse assisted wrestling maneuvers to Emhidmoda’s amusement. The recently arrived mercenaries departed, ceding the kill to the party who began to search the rowboat. This was interrupted by the realization that a gargantuan longship crewed by at least 2 dozen frost giants. Worried that this ships northward course indicated an imminent attack on Neverwinter the party dispatched the captive wolf, and rode as fast as their wounded mounts would allow, reaching the city late the following afternoon. They were ushered by a guard to the Halls of Justice to speak to the captain who had been tasked with overseeing the “Giant Issue”. Entering the office off of the pavilion of the temple they were greeted by none other than an exhausted looking Sildar Hallwinter. Category:Story __FORCETOC__